Dota 2 Patch 7.38 overflows with so many new features that players are treading water just to keep up

After long months of wintery wait, Dota 2 finally got Patch 7.38, titled “Wandering Waters.” The floodgates have opened, and we have a barrage of changes impacting how the game plays at a fundamental level.

The most visible change is, of course, the flooding around the Safelanes. These aren’t just an upgrade to the scenery, though. Running with the current gives you a speed boost towards your safe lane. On the surface, this seems to make the trip from the base to the Safelane tier one tower area significantly faster.

Roshan is finally back to the central part of the Dota 2 map, back from the remotest corners where he was exiled since the New Frontiers update. He still has two pits and will travel between them each day-night cycle—but no more teleportation gimmick. The big boy will stomp through the Midlane, so be ready to embrace some chaos every five minutes there.

The objectives added by New Frontiers—Tormentor, Wisdom Rune, and Lotus Pools—have also received overhauls with Patch 7.38. Tormentor has switched places with the pre-patch Roshan pits, and instead of two, only a single Tormentor will spawn at a time. 

Wisdom Rune is now Shrine of Wisdom, and it’s no more a battle of who can click it faster. “Instead of plucking a rune off the ground, you’ll need to stand in the shrine to earn the XP. The wrinkle? The shrine won’t activate if there’s an enemy hero in there with you. You’ll have to earn a little privacy to bag the boon,” according to Valve. Lotus Pool also sees a similar change where you’ll have to make sure no enemy heroes are swimming alongside you in the pool.

Patch 7.38 also fundamentally changes how we approach Neutral Items in Dota 2. Clearing a creep camp earns you Madstone now—two for yourself and one for a random ally. And you get to craft personalized Neutral Items with this new currency. Each item is now made up of two parts—an Artifact that gives your item new abilities and an Enchantment that gives it passive stat/attribute bonuses.

Talking about Neutral Items, there’s also a new Neutral camp brought by this patch. It is “a new amphibious creep type that evolves from Pollywog to Boglet to Croaker throughout the match,” Valve said. Info is still scarce on this one, but one thing’s for sure—Icefrog doesn’t make a cameo appearance as one of the camp dwellers.

On the QoL side, we finally got a “mark for sell” button for items, making inventory management a whole lot easier. Just like it used to appear in the spectator UI, Roshan’s spawn info will now be on every player’s HUD.

All said, these are only the “general” changes brought by Dota 2 Patch 7.38. You have a whole host of other changes in the hero and item front. Here is the link to the official patch notes. If you want to see pros caught in the flood, you’re in luck—DreamLeague Season 25 is ongoing.